Here's a gif of all completed frames so far, which I'm going to use to talk about some of the broad-strokes plans for this character.
You can see that he has multiple death frames, different ones for different hazards such as crushed, electric, fire, etc. I'm planning on adding a couple more, like for drowning or whatever else I can come up with.
He has eyelids over his A2 frame. This was originally just a test to see which eyelids I should give him on his hurt frame, but many people got excited about a potential blinking feature so I went ahead and added eyelids for all standing frames in my work file. I'm not super focused on figuring out how to implement this feature, but I have the frames ready for it just in case.
His spin animation uses the motion blur shown there, but it looks a bit strange at slower speeds, so I'm considering giving him a second, more traditional spin animation for when he slows down out of the motion blur animation. This is all dependant on if I feel like going through with it after I finish the necessary frames first. Here's a gif of how the blur looks ingame
Some other unique frames he's planned to get include a brake frame and a gust frame

I think the spin animation really shows that although this base design is inspired by Saturn Sonic, his animations are not going to be 100% true to the saturn model. I don't like the flickering of the saturn jump animation so I opted for one that uses a perfect sphere to highlight the simplistic style of this sonic and his animation.

Here's a gif of all completed frames so far, which I'm going to use to talk about some of the broad-strokes plans for this character.
You can see that he has multiple death frames, different ones for different hazards such as crushed, electric, fire, etc. I'm planning on adding a couple more, like for drowning or whatever else I can come up with.
He has eyelids over his A2 frame. This was originally just a test to see which eyelids I should give him on his hurt frame, but many people got excited about a potential blinking feature so I went ahead and added eyelids for all standing frames in my work file. I'm not super focused on figuring out how to implement this feature, but I have the frames ready for it just in case.
His spin animation uses the motion blur shown there, but it looks a bit strange at slower speeds, so I'm considering giving him a second, more traditional spin animation for when he slows down out of the motion blur animation. This is all dependant on if I feel like going through with it after I finish the necessary frames first. Here's a gif of how the blur looks ingame
Some other unique frames he's planned to get include a brake frame and a gust frame

At this point, I'm not even surprised that this looks amazing, this is you, after-all!
Keep up the good work!

I have never seen so much sheer personality injected into a character wad, ever. I approve of your decision to keep the style simple and clean. As a result I think this will be the least stiff-feeling sonic SRB2 has ever seen!

Hello SRB2 community! I'm back and going full-speed ahead into making another new character WAD. This design is heavily inspired by Saturn Sonic (Sonic Jam and Sonic R) however his gameplay and animations aren't all going to be dictated by those seen in those games. Aesthetic over accuracy here.
The shading style here is simple and uses minimal AA in favor of easier animation. This is going to animate rather differently from what you're used to seeing in SRB2 as all the animations are being done completely from scratch. All poses that are asymmetrical are going to get 8 frame rotations instead of the usual 5, like what is shown in the idle animation.
Not only do I want to make the existing animaitons unique, but I also have plans to make frames for things that other characters don't have, like a unique brake frame and a peelout ability. However, I'm an artist and not a programmer, so I will need help on the lua scripting when it comes to that.
What I'm looking for from this thread is CC on the artwork and animation decisions, as well as suggestions to make this character play uniquely from your average SRB2 character. Currently the plan is double jump ability with peelout custom ability

After a lot of trial and error I think I finally have a spin animation that I'm happy with. I think a big reason why the previous one looked wrong at slower speed was because of the 4frame limitation, so this one is 8 frames.

After a lot of trial and error I think I finally have a spin animation that I'm happy with. I think a big reason why the previous one looked wrong at slower speed was because of the 4frame limitation, so this one is 8 frames.

HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME
(Kinda looks like a Drop Dash :P)
If it's a spindash animation, perhaps make it "lean" forward a little, like in the classic games.

It's the regular spin/jump animation, not a special spindash or drop dash animation.
The maine side frames are almost completed for this character, right now I'm only missing grab, run, and teeter, not counting the super frames.

It's the regular spin/jump animation, not a special spindash or drop dash animation.
The maine side frames are almost completed for this character, right now I'm only missing grab, run, and teeter, not counting the super frames.

Chrisp, I will say that this is extremely ambitious (amplified with a sudden Sonic Boom of Sonic's >pun may-or-may-not be intended<) and I'm with ya all the way! Perhaps also post a percentage on the estimated completion?

That's impossible for me to say. To get a percentage I'd have to know how many frames total will be in the final product and compare it to how many frames I currently have completed, but considering this character use 8 frame rotation rather than the usual 5 (the sides are not mirrored) and that this character will also have unique frames for actions that other characters don't have frames for, it's really impossible for me to get a final frame count until I'm there.

Here's another roundup of completed frames so far. The back spin gif starts at a weird frame to stay in line with where the other angles start but I promise it loops correctly.
The 8 frame rotation adds a lot of minor detail that most of the time you wouldn't pick up on, like the mouth not flipping sides, the asymmetrical shading of the orb not switching sides on the different side frames, and how the walk animation feet always starts with the right foot up.

- The 8 frame rotation adds a lot of minor detail that most of the time you wouldn't pick up on, like - how the walk animation feet always starts with the right foot up.

That last bit is not only possible with 8 rotations per frame. You can, for example, mirror frame 1 from diagonal right to frame 5 of diagonal left, frame 2 to frame 6, 3 to 7, 4-8, 5-1, 6-2, 7-3, and 8-4.

SRB2 2.1's vanilla Sonic and Knuckles do this, and custom characters can do the same (such as by using a lump name of "xxxxD2H8" to mirror D's 2nd rotation to H's 8th rotation). SRB2 2.1's vanilla Sonic even mirrors the first four walking frames to the last four walking frames for the front and back rotations to only require 4 lumps for all 8 frames of the animation (by using a lump name of "xxxxD1H1" and not having a standalone lump for H1, and doing the same for E-I, F-J, and G-K).

Even if you're using 8 individual rotations per frame, you should still consider mirroring where possible to reduce filesize. (For example, the first four walking frames from the back might be mirror-able to the last four walking frames from the back, even if the rest of the rotations for it aren't mirror-able at all. This depends on how you've animated and shaded it, of course.) But don't take this as "make sure your sprites are mirror-able, and then mirror all of them", just take it as "make your sprites however you want, then mirror any sprites that are then already able to be mirrored".

I feel like with the current state of releases we have enough sonics with a myriad of abilities, so I want to try to keep Pointy's ability set simple and focus on adding flair with the animations, so he has double jump and a bounce that doesn't halt his momentum. His abilities use a 6-frame flip animation.
Also, as of right now Pointy's base side frames are complete, but there are still additional frames I want to add in, like brake.